


the sweetest dream (that you have ever known)

by bemusedlybespectacled (ardentintoxication)



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Christmas, F/M, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, What Was I Thinking?, Why Did I Write This?, more of a retelling than anything honestly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-02-28 15:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2738126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardentintoxication/pseuds/bemusedlybespectacled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Presented without comment, except for the greatest of apologies to Mr. Dickens.</p>
<p>Title from <i>A Muppet Christmas Carol</i>'s "When Love Is Gone."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mrs. Tremaine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FlorentineQuill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlorentineQuill/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kindly direct all complaints regarding the existence of this fic to the following: FlorentineQuill, The Jim Henson Company, Tumblr.

Mrs. Tremaine was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of her burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Mrs. Tremaine was as dead as a door-nail. Why a door-nail should be dead, when any other number of things can be more closely related to the morbid, I do not know, but the fact remains that she was dead, and had been dead for some years. I must make this quite clear, or nothing that shall come after this shall seem wondrous.

She'd had no friends, her husband had predeceased her by two decades or more, and her children all sent their condolences but did not come to the funeral, and so the office of chief mourner had fallen onto her business partner. That was Mrs. Moore, and her word was good as any - more, even, for her credit was as good as her word and her profits as black as her moods. Not that Mrs. Moore had any particular fondness for Mrs. Tremaine. They had been joined more by a mutual love of money than by any sororal affection, and so Mrs. Tremaine's funeral was conducted with all the emotion and sentiment of a business dissolution. 

Oh, but she was a stonehearted skinflint, Moore! a cold, ruthless, snatching, plotting, pitiless, mercenary woman. As harsh and biting as hoarfrost, which no heat had ever managed to soften and melt; secret and taciturn, and solitary as a bear, but with only half the bear's good nature. Her cheeks were sharp, with no pleasant, warm glow; her eyes were the green of thick ice; her mouth was frozen such that it never once moved an inch in the direction of a smile. The weather had no effect on her, for she was cold even in the height of summer and no snow could be said to be colder than she.

Nobody ever called out to her in the street to invite her to tea or So-and-So's soirée; no one would dream to compliment her on her fine dress or new hat (if ever she had either, for she was not given to vanity nor interested in the latest fashions, and only bought clothes when necessity dictated); no beggar ever had cause to bless her for her charity and wish her a good day. Parents pointed her out to their children to warn them never to speak to her, or even to wave at her in passing; cats crossed the street to avoid crossing her path. But that, of course, was just how she liked it. Pleasant conversation and benevolent smiles were anathema to her, hushed voices and wide berths her preferred environment.

Once upon a time, on one particular Christmas Eve, Moore was in her office conducting her business as usual. It being Christmas Eve made no difference to her, nor did the weather, which was especially cold and bleak even for winter. Clouds had stubbornly darkened the skies all day, snow muddied and turned to ice and slush on the cobblestones, and fog swirled thick and grey in the streets, some dyed yellow from the already-lit street lamps, even though it was only about three in the afternoon.

The door of Moore's office was open in order to keep an eye on her clerk, Mr. McKennon, who was filling out long forms and transactions in his meagre cell. Moore had a very small fire in her office, but the clerk's could barely be called a flame. He dared not ask for more coal for fear that he would lose his place (as a drain on company resources, no doubt), and so instead he wore his long black coat indoors and tried in vain to pretend that his candle (which seemed almost to provide more heat than his brazier) was sufficient to warm him. Despite these efforts, the tip of his sharp nose was pink with cold, and his neat handwriting suffered from his shivering.

"A merry Christmas, godmother! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was Moore's goddaughter, Aurora, who, like the dawn she was named for, had a habit of rushing in, bursting with happiness and sunshine. 

"Bah," said Moore. "Humbug!"

Aurora had walked so quickly to visit her godmother that she was all in a glow; her cheeks were rosy, her lips red, her eyes green. It was scarcely warmer inside than outside, and her breath turned to smoke as she spoke.

“Christmas a humbug, godmother?” said Aurora. “You don’t mean that, I am sure!”

“I do,” said Moore. “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What _reason_ have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.”

“Come, then,” replied her goddaughter gaily. “What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.”

Moore, having no answer to that particular wit, said, “Bah!” again; and followed it up with “Humbug.”

“Oh, don't be cross, godmother!” said Aurora.

“What else can I be,” returned the woman, “when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time of emptying your purse even as you fill your belly with feasts? If I could work my will,” said Moore indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.”

“Godmother!” pleaded Aurora.

“Goddaughter!” said Moore, with the smallest hint of mockery. “Keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”

“Keep it?” repeated Aurora. “But you _don’t_ keep it.”

“Let me leave it alone, then,” said Moore. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!”

“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the goddaughter. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, godmother, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it  _has_  done me good, and  _will_  do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

The clerk involuntarily applauded. Both women immediately turned in his direction, and he immediately busied himself with blowing on the singular coal in his brazier. His efforts only smothered it entirely.

“One more word or sound out of _you_ ,” said his mistress, “and you’ll spend your Christmas going up and down streets looking for a new position! And as for _you_ ," she said, turning to her goddaughter, "you might do better to behave as a lady ought."

"Like you?" said Aurora, indicating the office. Mrs. Moore made no reply. “Don’t be angry, godmother," Aurora continued. "Please tell me you'll see Phillip and me to-morrow, and have dinner with us as our guest.”

Moore replied that she certainly would see her, but as to the time, place, and choice of dinner guest, she referenced the infernal.

“Oh, godmother,” said Aurora, for this was a usual occurrence for the pair, though her enthusiasm never wavered. "Why must you be so dreary?"

“Why must I be anything? Why must we _do_ anything? Why did you get married?” said Moore.

“Because I fell in love.”

“Because you fell in love!” said Moore, exasperated. "Well, you know my belief on that score."

"As well as I know your belief in a Merry Christmas."

"Then you will kindly cease bothering me about either. Good afternoon!”

“I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?”

“Good afternoon,” said Moore.

“I do not know why you remain so resolute in that conviction, and I only feel sadness for that, but I've extended the invitation in the spirit of this good season, which I will not revoke, and I’ll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So a Merry Christmas, godmother!”

“Good afternoon!” said Moore.

“And a Happy New Year!”

“Good afternoon!” said Moore.

The girl left the room as gaily as she'd came. She stopped briefly at the outer door to bestow the same greetings to Mr. McKennon, whose heart was as warm as his hearth was cold, and he returned the same to her.

“There’s another fellow talking about a merry Christmas," muttered Moore, "with no reason to consider it merry, what with no wife or family, and just fifteen shillings a week besides. I ought to run an institution, and lock up the pair of them as my first inmates.”

Mr. McKennon, unaware of his apparent lunacy in Moore's eyes, had let in two ladies, who had approached just as Moore's goddaughter had left. They were both matronly, with sweet round faces, and they carried little books and sheets of paper, to which they referred often.

“Moore and Tremaine's, I believe,” said one of the ladies, consulting her notebook. “I am Mrs. Knotgrass, and this is Mrs. Karner. Have I the pleasure of addressing Mrs. Moore or Mrs. Tremaine?”

“Mrs. Tremaine has been dead these seven years,” Moore replied. “She died precisely seven years ago, in fact.”

“We have no doubt her generosity is well represented by those who survive her,” said Mrs. Knotgrass.

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits, and never had they so agreed than in respect to the word "generosity." Mrs. Moore frowned, and the icy eyes grew a fraction colder, but the two women continued on.

“At this festive season of the year, Mrs. Moore,” said Mrs. Karner, seeming eager to get a word in, that her associate might not do all the talking, “we especially hope to appeal to those of good fortune to remember those less fortunate, the poor and destitute who are in dire need of basic necessities and lack even then basest of comforts.”

“Are there no prisons? No workhouses?” asked Moore.

"Plenty of both," said Karner, "though I wish there were not, and were not quite so miserably full as they are."

"And the Poor Laws? They are still enforced?"

"Most assuredly."

“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to end them in some respect,” said Moore. “I’m very glad to hear they are still in working order.”

“But they are hardly sufficient to bring Christian cheer and generosity to those most in need of it,” said Knotgrass. “We at the Ladies' Church Society are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the poor some small comforts: food, drink, wood and coal to warm their bodies, and perhaps even small gifts to warm their hearts." With a dramatic and sentimental flair, she added, "We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when we are called upon to act with feminine grace and softness, when our piety and generosity is most needed. What shall I put you down for?”

“Nothing!” Moore replied.

“You wish to be anonymous?”

“I wish to be left alone,” said Moore. “I don’t make merry myself at Christmas, nor can I afford to make others merry. An appeal to my femininity is useless to my pocketbook. My taxes go to support those establishments I have mentioned, and they are costly enough already; those who are badly off must go there.”

“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

“If they would rather die,” said Moore, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Good afternoon, ladies!"

With ill-hidden looks of disapproval, but resigned to Moore's hard heart and unwilling to provoke her temper, the two women left. Mrs. Moore went back to her business for the next several hours with a great improvement in her mood, enough that she allowed her clerk one more lump of coal with only a fraction of her usual grumbling.

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that the figures on the streets seemed from the window to be no more than dark smears, and all recognizable features of the buildings outside disappeared entirely. The sound outside quieted to no more than the stamp of hooves and boots on cobblestone, the splash of slush and stepped-in puddles, the faint puffs of breath as passers-by blew on their hands to warm them or wheezed faintly from the cold.

Foggier yet, and colder. Increasing darkness working in concert with increasing cold. The sounds of the street fell almost to a silence, muffled further by the fog. One voice broke the silence with the hope that Moore might repay him for the song, but at the first utterance of "God rest ye merry, gentlemen," she crossed from her office to the front door in three short strides, and the energy of her rage so terrified the singer that he sped off without so much as a backward glance.

Eventually it came time to close the shop. With her usual gloom, Mrs. Moore emerged from her office to free the expectant clerk from his post, and he instantly blew out his candle, damped down his fire, and made as if to leave.

“You’ll want all day off to-morrow, I suppose?” said Mrs. Moore.

“If you wish it, mistress.”

“I _don't_ wish it,” said Moore. "It's hardly convenient for me. If I were to take it out of your wages, you'd think it grossly unfair.”

"I suppose I would," said McKennon, smiling faintly.

“And yet,” she continued, “no one else finds it unfair when _I_ pay a day’s wages for no work.”

"It's only once a year," said McKennon, "and every other business allows it, in the spirit of the season."

“An annual robbery, and one that every judge pardons 'in the spirit of the season'!” cried Moore. She sighed, buttoning up her coat all the way to the thick fur collar. “But as I seem to be the only objector, I suppose you must have the whole day."

The clerk only smiled broader, as if he knew a secret, which rather alarmed Moore, though she did not say so. Instead she put on her gloves and said, "Be here all the earlier next morning.”

"Of course, mistress," said the clerk, and with a sweep of her coat, Mrs. Moore left the office and made for home. The office was closed in a few short moments, and as soon as it was, he put on his hat, wrapped his coat tightly around him, and practically flew toward his little house in Whitechapel, stopping only to exchange cordial greetings with passerby and wish them all a Happy Christmas.

Mrs. Moore did not return home so cheerily. She sat alone at her usual table in her usual women's restaurant, and having eaten her usual dinner in her usual manner, she took a cab to Holloway. She lived alone, in a suite of rooms that had once belonged to her deceased partner, so dark and cold and gloomy that no one else but she could bear to live there. She did not mind the draughts or dark corners, and that the other rooms in the place were empty so late at night, being let out as offices rather than homes, suited her well. That emptiness was especially keen now, and the fog made the place seem all the lonelier, the thick frost upon the gate and leading to the door made it seem even colder.

She turned the key in the lock as usual, and opened the door to her hall without incident. But it was what she saw in the hall mirror that was unusual.

Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the mirror, and Moore rarely had cause to look in it at all. It is also a fact that Moore had no interest in the fanciful, or anything that could not be said to be seen with one's own senses, and included in this all notions of the fanciful or supernatural. Let it also be borne in mind that she'd not thought of her dead business partner that day beyond her explanation to the gentlewomen that afternoon, nor had she dwelled on her memory for more than a few moments in the seven years since her death. And despite all this, which to all reasonable persons would preclude any sort of Mrs. Moore, having stamped the slush off her boots and entered the hall, saw reflected in the mirror, as if she stood behind her, Mrs. Tremaine.

Mrs. Tremaine. It was clearly no shadow, no odd reflection or smear upon the glass, but a precise copy of how she had looked in life, the only obvious difference being the faint green light that surrounded the figure like a perverse halo. The figure was not menacing, but the unnatural stillness of it, and of course the impossibility of it appearing at all, was so extraordinary that Mrs. Moore actually looked behind her, to see if she had been followed to her own door.

There was no one there.

Nor was there anything in the mirror when she turned back.

To say that she was not alarmed would be untrue, and indeed her heart fluttered momentarily and her hand shook just a fraction, but her pride was founded on the notion that she was not the sort of woman who fainted at every opportunity, especially at fleeting fancies of the brain, and she ignored it. She closed the door firmly and locked it behind her, lighting a candle to guide her. She examined the mirror for a moment, to reassure herself that it was unaltered, and then went up the stairs, the candlelight casting odd shadows ahead of her.

The sitting-room was still and quiet as always. Her bedroom, too, was free of apparitions. Just a fire in the grate, and a kettle on the hob. Her wardrobe had nothing in it but clothes, her lumber room empty but for furniture. Taking a precaution she normally never felt the need for, she locked the door, and then double-locked it, and hung the key on a hook by the door to ensure she would not misplace it. Satisfied, she changed into nightgown and dressing gown (Mrs. Moore had no lady's maid), and freed her hair from its pins, and settled before the fire for a cup of chamomile tea. 

The fire had been burning since her housekeeper had left for the night, and it had sunk so low as to barely heat the hearthstones, let alone the room. Moore pulled her chair close to the grate, and sipped her tea, and cast her eyes about the room.

They alighted on a small bell, which hung over the fireplace. Whatever connection it had had with the other rooms in the house was long severed, but Mrs. Moore's landlord had not bothered to remove it, and she had not bothered to complain. And yet, though the room was tight as a drum and not a single draught could enter, and before her very eyes, the bell began to peal. It was joined by its brothers, service bells and clock chimes all throughout the house, each joining the cacophony until the entire house seemed to shake with the noise. And underneath, as the counterpoint to the tolling bells, was the unmistakable dragging of chains.

The sound seemed to swell, and Moore could feel  _something_ travelling from the cellar up the stairwell towards her.

"Humbug," said Mrs. Moore. "I won't believe it."

But even as she said the words, the noise was at her very door, and then, like oil through cloth, before her disbelieving eyes, through the door came Mrs. Tremaine's ghost.

And it  _was_ Mrs. Tremaine, the same as she had been before she died. Her hair was in its familiar severe bun, her dress and shoes the same, and all of her, from her hair to her petticoats, fluttered slightly, as if she were being buffeted by intangible winds. A great chain was wrapped around her middle, just where her corset was tightest, and Mrs. Moore could see that it was forged of cash boxes and purses and ledger books, but (curiously) what looked to be willow switches, scissors, and keys, all forged of steel. Her body was translucent, and flickering with a green light that seemed brightest where her eyes ought to be.

Mrs. Moore looked at the spectre, and did not believe. Though she saw it all as clearly as she could see the tea pot on the hob, she remained incredulous.

“Well, then!” said Moore, with her usual temper. “What do you want with me?”

“Much!” The ghost spoke with Tremaine's own voice.

“Who are you?”

“Ask me who I  _was_.”

“Who  _were_  you then?” said Mrs. Moore, growing impatient.

“In life I was your partner, Agatha Tremaine.”

“Well, would you like to sit down?" Moore looked at her again. " _Can_ you sit down?"

“I can.”

“Do it, then.”

Mrs. Moore had asked the question after realising that a being incorporeal enough to walk through a heavy oak door might not be able to sit down in a solid chair, but it did not appear to be the case. Mrs. Tremaine's ghost sat down on the chair just as she'd used to, taking care to arrange her skirts.

“You don’t believe in me,” observed the ghost.

“I don’t,” said Moore.

“What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?”

“I don’t know,” said Moore.

“Why do you doubt your senses?”

“Because,” said Moore, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

Moore was not usually a woman given to humour, but the cold green fire of the spectre's eyes, the tenor of its voice, so terrified her that she hoped to distract it by any means necessary. The ghost, for its part, did not reply.

They sat in silence for a moment, somewhat awkwardly.

"Would you like any tea?" said Moore, at a loss for what to say.

"I cannot," said the ghost, "consume any earthly pleasure."

"Forgive me," said Moore, raising the cup to her lips. "I don't know the ways of ghosts, even if they are, as I believe, of my own fancy."

At this the spirit cried out with a voice unlike anything Mrs. Tremaine had ever uttered, so terrible and frightening that Mrs. Moore  _did_ worry that she would fall into a swoon, and rattled its chains in despair. The sound shot through her heart so utterly that she fell off the chair onto her knees, clasping her hands before her in supplication.

“Mercy!” she said. “Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?”

“Woman of the worldly mind!” replied the ghost, “do you believe in me or not?”

“I do,” said Moore. “I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?”

“It is required of every person,” said the ghost, “that the spirit within should walk among all fellow people, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world - such is my unhappy fate! - and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!”

Again the spectre wailed, and shook its chain, and stamped its feet in agony.

"You are fettered," observed Moore. "Why?"

“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you? Do you not recognize my sins, those against my family and my neighbors?"

Moore's hands shook, and her teeth chattered, such that she could say nothing.

“Or would you know,” continued the ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!”

Moore looked about her, as if to see the chain that the ghost described, but she saw nothing beyond the dying light of the fire on the dusty floorboards.

“Agatha,” she implored of it. “Dear Agatha, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Agatha!”

“I have none to give,” the ghost replied. “That is not my station - if you seek comfort, go elsewhere. Nor can I tell you all, for my time here is short, and I have far to travel to-night. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger. My spirit never walked beyond our offices, and now I must amend for that in death!”

"Has it taken you so long?" asked Moore, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“Long?” asked the ghost.

“Seven years dead, and travelling all that time?"

“The whole time,” said the ghost. “No rest, no peace. Only the hard labor of traveling, and my own remorse pursuing me like a baying hound.”

“You travel fast?” asked Moore.

“On the wings of the wind,” replied the ghost.

“You have travelled over quite a distance, then?"

The ghost, on hearing this, wailed again like a banshee, so loudly that, had Moore any neighbors, they might have been disturbed, and rapped on the wall or ceiling to protest her being a nuisance.

“Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,” cried the phantom, “not to know, that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!”

“But you always had a keen eye for business, Agatha,” said Moore, hoping both to console the spirit and reassure herself.

“Business!” the spirit cried. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

It shook its chains, as if in reproach of them, or perhaps to try and wrest them from its limbs, and then flung them down again in disgust.

“I suffer most in this time of the year, when I travel throughout the world seeking acts of charity, and finding the hearts of others as cold as mine was in life. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them! I might have seen the misfortune of others, and amended it, but now that I am forbidden to do so, each poor living soul only torments me!"

Moore shook harder, quaking on the floor.

“Listen!” cried the ghost. “My time is nearly gone.”

“I will,” said Moore. “But don't be flowery, Agatha: speak plainly, but if you can, softly.”

“I do not know how it is that I could appear before you this night, when many nights before this I have sat beside you, watching, without you ever seeing me.”

This disturbed Moore greatly, and she shivered with the thought.

“By what power or art, it does not matter: I am here to-night to tell you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate, Malvina.”

“Heavens," she replied. "I don't know how to thank you."

“You will be haunted,” the ghost continued, “by three spirits.”

Her face went white, and she shook harder.

“Is this what you mean by having a chance and hope, Agatha?” she asked, her voice quivering.

“It is.”

“I think I'd rather not,” she said.

“Without their visits,” said the ghost, “you cannot hope to avert those horrors I have experienced. Expect the first to-morrow, when the bell tolls one.”

“Would it not be more efficient to have all three of them at once?” asked Malvina.

“Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. I will not see you again, so for your sake, I hope you remember what has passed between us this night!”

At that, the ghost fluttered out the window, and Malvina ran to it to watch. The sight that met her eyes appalled her: there seemed to be hundreds of ghosts, some of them well-known to her, all wailing in anguish. There was one with dark, unpinned curls and a sharply pointed nose who held out her arms to a young mother and child sleeping in a doorframe; another spirit was male, with a pinched look about the face, struggling in vain against the chains that bound him. It was clear what was the cause of their distress: they were surrounded by innocents, ones that they hoped to do good for, and to help, but were utterly unable to intervene, and could only watch. The suffering of the living fed the suffering of the dead.

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, she could not tell, but something happened, so that they faded all at once, and the night was as still as it had been before.

She closed the window, and examined the door by which the ghost had came. It was double-locked, just as she had left it, and the bolts were undisturbed. Her lips could not gather themselves to say anything, let alone an incredulous "humbug!", and so she was silent. Instead, out of the combination of the disturbance, the long work of the day, the whirlwind of her emotions, and the lateness of the hour, she felt terribly exhausted, and climbed into the bed without bothering to remove her dressing gown, and fell asleep as soon as her head met the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO MUCH RESEARCH OH MY GOD
> 
> Anyway, some notes:
> 
>   * Mrs. Tremaine is, of course, the evil stepmother from Cinderella.
>   * Maleficent's name in this story is Mrs. Malvina Moore. Up until about 1900, [adult women were generally called "Mrs." as adults, especially if they had business or social standing](http://hwj.oxfordjournals.org/content/78/1/39.full), and so she is unmarried and never has been married but is still called "Mrs." Diaval's use of "mistress" is archaic even for the time (he might call her "my mistress" in the sense of "my boss" to other people, but not to her face), but I couldn't resist. "Malvina" is a name from an 1760 epic poem, which has[ a fairly bizarre history](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossian#The_poems) that I find entertaining.
>   * Diaval's last name is taken from [his first voice actor.](http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Diablo)
>   * I used a lot of text verbatim, especially Fred's monologue about how wonderful Christmas is, as it's one of my favorite scenes in the original. I also cut a lot of text, as Mr. Dickens was being paid by the word and I am not.
>   * A Karner blue is a kind of butterfly, so Flittle's last name here is Karner.
>   * The two unnamed but described spirits are Mother Gothel and Frollo.
> 



	2. The First Spirit

When she awoke, it was so dark that she could not even see her hand in front of her face, so thickly was everything enshrouded in blackness. Her eyes were only just adjusting to it when she heard the church bell chime thrice. "Has it been three quarters of an hour?" she said to herself, for it seemed to her that she had only closed her eyes for a moment, and her sleep had been refreshing as one that had lasted hours.

She frowned. She had no idea of the hour, the clock subject to the same darkness as the rest of the room, but she could not go back to sleep, though surely it was the middle of the night. Of course she couldn't have slept for only a few moments, or she would still be drowsy, but neither could she have slept for hours without it being daylight yet. "Perhaps," she reasoned to herself, "all that business about Mrs. Tremaine was a dream, and so I have slept longer than I thought." And yet, it had all seemed so real. Of course it's possible to know a dream is a dream after you have awoken, but Mrs. Moore  _had_ awoken, and the night's events seemed as clear and real to her as ever.

The clock sounded again. Her thoughts must have shortened the time, or perhaps she had drifted into a half-sleep without realizing it. The bell tolled once, twice, thrice, and then a fourth time, and then the hour bell sounded just once, a single chime that seemed to cast a shiver about the room. Moore shivered with it, and like a tide going in and out, as the chill passed, a soft, warm light took its place.

The light was muffled somewhat by the bedcurtains, and it was perfectly still, such that Moore hesitated for a moment about opening the curtains at all. But she reasoned that it would be rude to keep whoever-it-was waiting, and better to get it over with sooner rather than later. Carefully she opened the curtains, and even more carefully she stuck her head out to see who was waiting for her.

It was a little woman, no more than a foot in height. It had a child's proportions, the same large head and small hands, and yet its face was decidedly adult, with eyes that seemed more suited for a wise elderly woman than for anyone under the age of sixty. It floated in midair, not by its own volition, but by the delicate pair of butterfly wings at its back that beat tremendously to support it. Its dress was made of summer flowers, as fresh and green as a newly-picked dandelion, and from its head sprang thick golden curls. Curiouser still, the source of the light that had announced its presence came from the top of its head, and under its arm was a little green cap, of the same color and make as the dress, shaped like a candle douter.

“Are you the spirit, madam, whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Moore.

“I am!”

The voice was soft and gentle, and faint, as if the spirit spoke from far away.

“Who and what are you?” Moore demanded.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Long past?”

“No. Your past.”

"My past?" said Moore, amused more than anything. "Could you put that out?" she asked, apropos of nothing.

"Put  _what_ out?"

"That light," said Moore, "it hurts my eyes." Truthfully the light was as soft and gentle as a whisper, but the sight of it unnerved her.

“What!” asked the ghost, in a tone that indicated it did not believe her, “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow?”

Moore protested that she had never meant to offend, nor had she, to her knowledge, forced any such haberdashery upon any person in her life. Instead, to change the subject, she inquired as to the spirit's purpose.

“Your welfare!” said the ghost.

"I should think leaving me to my bed would be more conducive to that," said Moore.

“Your redemption, then," said the ghost. "Come with me!"

Though its grip on her arm was gentle, there was no escaping it, and Moore followed the spirit even up to the window. But when she saw the spirit's purpose, she stopped, and wrenched her arm away. 

“You might have wings, " she said, "But I am a mortal, and liable to fall. And surely I'm too large for you to carry.”

“Bear but a touch of my hand  _there_ ,” said the Spirit, laying it upon her heart, “and you shall be upheld in more than this!”

With that, the gossamer wings beat madly, and ghost and woman were carried up, up, up into the night sky. Over the chimneys and steeples they flew, above the clouds and into the headwinds, and she started to laugh in spite of herself, a very improper giggle that she would never have allowed herself to utter in public. They flew towards a great light, something that couldn't possibly be the sun coming up over the horizon, and as it enveloped them, she found herself standing in a deep wood, with snow lying deep on the ground, and a country road running through it.

"I know this place," she said faintly. "I was a girl here."

Almost unconsciously, she started down the road, led not by any particular thing, but by a stream of sounds and smells and sights that recalled memories long ago forgotten. She wandered in this way until she was several yards down the road, and then she stopped, embarrassed.

“You recollect the way?” asked the spirit.

“Remember it!” she said, gesturing to the distance between them to prove her point. "I could walk it blindfold." 

“Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!” the ghost replied. “Come.”

They walked along the road for some time. The ghost was silent, but Moore could not help but look around her in wonder, and if the stern mask of her face cracked when she saw a house that she remembered, or a particular tree that she had climbed to use as a reading nook, the ghost made no mention of it. When they approached the boarding school deep in the woods, far from town and up on its solitary hill, they began to see people - coaches being loaded up with boxes and trunks, and young girls in neat little uniforms, some with their smiling parents, some being collected by stern-faced nannies or maiden aunts, all aglow with the excitement of Christmas. Moore stopped in the road, and almost hid behind a tree, fearful of being seen as she was, in her nightgown and dressing-gown.

“These are but shadows of the things that have been,” said the ghost. “They have no consciousness of us.”

The spirit led her further still, past the people thronged outside, and through the dark and winding corridors until they reached one solitary little classroom, with a small fire in the grate.

There was a little girl there, with long dark hair that hung almost to the ties of her pinafore. She sat alone, reading, and Moore circled her warily, as if afraid that she might be seen. Then she spied the books.

"Oh, I remember this!" she said. She went as if to pick up the book, only to realize that her hand had passed through it, so instead she pointed. "It's St. George and the dragon! And here, this one is about the Sleeping Beauty. I always liked the second half best, when the ogre mother-in-law tried to eat her and her children, and the cook, that brave cook, he had to save them. And Hop o' My Thumb, and Puss in Boots, and Donkeyskin, and Cinderella! I used to be able to read these for hours," she said with a laugh, "they were so much more interesting than my schoolbooks, especially when-"

She paused, all trace of her good humor gone. "-when I was left alone."

"You were orphaned, I believe," said the ghost.

"Yes," she said. "My aunt raised me, but I stayed at the school over the holidays. It wasn't until she died and I went to live with my other relatives that I spent Christmas at home." She looked at the child in front of her with pity. "Poor child. I wish- well, I suppose it doesn't matter."

"What?" asked the spirit.

She looked away. "I-I was only thinking of a boy I saw earlier," she stammered. "He was singing carols outside my door. I should have liked to have given him something, that's all."

The ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, “Let us see another Christmas!”

At once they were in another time, another place. No more were they in a dark and cold classroom, but in a well-lit house. All the furniture had been dragged out of each piece's rightful place to best allow for dancing, and there was a little table in the corner with punch and treats of all kinds, and everyone - family and servants alike - were bustling about, all in a haste to arrange a Christmas party. One man stood at the center of the storm, directing the arrangement of chairs and the placement of food on the table. He was squat and pleasantly round, with a ready smile and a good-natured laugh that seemed to shake his whole body.

"It's my uncle Robin!" she cried. "It's my dear old uncle Robin alive again!" She looked almost as if she wanted to throw her arms about him. "He took me in when my aunt died, you know, and never have I known a kinder soul."

"Malvina!" he called. No answer. " _Malvina!_ "

"Yes, uncle?" called a voice, and there she was, Mrs. Moore when she was only a Miss. Her dark hair was artfully arranged according to the fashion of the time, and her lips and cheeks were rosy with excitement. Her green and gold dress could only be new - no one reverently smooths a hand over the bodice of an old dress, nor sweeps their hips just so as they walk to watch the rustle of skirts they've already seen before.

"Go and fetch the cake!"

"It's still being iced, uncle!"

"Still being iced?" he said, with mock indignation. "The guests will be here in ten minutes, and when they arrive, they will want cake, and surely we cannot deny them! Who's icing it?"

"Flora, I think," she said.

"You had better help her if we're to have it done in time! And if you dip your finger in the bowl, that's your aunt's affair, not mine," he added, with a conspiratorial look.

"A good man," said the older Moore to herself, "no better man."

"Surely all this cost him a great deal of money," said the ghost.

"That didn't matter to him," she said, quite forgetting herself. "He was always endeavouring to bring joy to whoever he could, and never considered what it cost him; and it wasn't out of familial obligation, just that he wanted to see people happy." She stopped.

"What's the matter?"

"I might have a few things to say to my goddaughter, that's all."

And when the guests came, they  _came_ , all at once, the musicians and their neighbors down one side of the street and their neighbors up the other side and her uncle's business associates and her aunt's church friends, such that the room was almost too cramped for a person to move about freely. And yet they all managed to fit around the table, for the mince pies and the punch and the roast and the cake (which was iced to perfection), and they all helped to clear away the table so that there was room for everyone to dance and, if they wished, to talk amongst themselves. Uncle Robin, with a cunning belying his age, took one young man by the elbow and led him to where his niece was standing by herself in the corner.

"Malvina," said her uncle, "this is Stefan Shepherd. He's Mr. Kingsley's apprentice, you remember Mr. Kingsley. Stefan, allow me to introduce my niece, Miss Malvina Moore."

He was tall, with dark hair and blue eyes. He bowed very properly to her, and she curtseyed very properly to him, and they made idle conversation until their escort made good his escape and left the two of them alone.

"Do you like dancing, Miss Moore?" he asked.

"I adore it," she replied. "And you, Mr. Shepherd?"

"I confess I am a poor dancer," he said, "but with you to guide me-!"

The musicians struck up "Haste to the Wedding," and he led her through a reel so fast that their feet seemed to hardly touch the ground. And so it was with her aunt and uncle, who were not to be outdone, though quite a few of their guests gave a good show of effort. The shadow Stefan and Malvina stopped just moments after the music did, color high and laughing with exhilaration, but the present-day Malvina looked distant and saddened.

"Is this not a happy memory?" asked the spirit. In another being it might almost have been mocking.

"It once was," she said, "but no longer. I have happier ones."

"My time grows short," said the ghost. "Quick!"

Again, Malvina saw herself, slightly older now, rushing to the side of a young man - the same who had danced with her at the party, himself older. His hair had grown out, and his face was thinner, and something had replaced the kind sparkle in his eye.

"Stefan!" cried Moore's other self. "You will not believe what has happened!"

"What is it?" he said, but his words were cold. Her younger self did not seem to hear his coldness, and pressed on, "I've found a position with a Mrs. Tremaine. She's a widow, Stefan, and has promised to make me a partner with her in the business, as she is some years older than me and needs someone of my acuity!" She said those last words as someone quotes the object of their admiration, with pride. 

"Mal," said Stefan, but still she spoke over him.

"If we're both working, perhaps now we can get married sooner? We'll only have to wait a few years, instead of ages and ages. Isn't that a much better plan?"

"Mal," said Stefan again. "I, too, have something to tell you." He said it with such gravity that she looked up into his face, and saw him properly for the first time since she'd arrived.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"Mal, I, too, did not want to wait to be married, but... well, you know the aspirations I have for my future."

"Of course," she said, still ignorant of his true meaning. "What of it?"

"Mr. Kingsley, my employer, has consented to let me marry his daughter," he said in a rush. "Her dowry, and her father's good will, are what I need to succeed in my plans. Surely you understand."

"Yes," said Malvina, and her tone chilled considerably. "I understand."

"And at least now I don't have to worry about leaving you destitute, now that I know you've got a good position yourself."

"Yes," she said again, and it was harder this time.

"We can still be friends?" asked Stefan, and even as Malvina's eyes hardened, like ice forming over a still pond, she said, "Yes, of course we can."

"And of course we'll want you for our baby's godmother." He winked at her, but she was immune to the intended effect, and his charm was useless on her.

"Of course," she said, but with these two words her heart, which had been cracking, broke completely.

The scene faded just as Stefan began to say, "You may keep the ring, if you like."

“Spirit!” said Moore, “please, show me kindness! Show me goodness! Can you show me nothing but pain?”

No sooner had she said the words then they were in her office, perhaps only a year later. Everyone else had left, and she was alone, tallying the year's expenditures. She was startled by a knock at the door.

There was a man there, dressed in black, pale as paper, fingers blue with the cold and eyes rimmed with red.

"Er, is Mrs. Tremaine in?" he asked haltingly. He took his hat off, and turned it about in his hands.

"Not today," she replied, "but if you mean to make a payment, the cashbox-"

He shook his head  _no_. "I mean to ask about that. I'm meant to deliver a payment day after Christmas, but I would like to ask for an extension."

Her shadow-self raised shadow eyebrows. "An extension?"

"Yes. On my mortgage." He swallowed hard. "I know I'm supposed to make a payment every two weeks, but I've only got twelve shillings a week and haven't... that is, this week I just can't..."

"Tremaine and Moore is not in the business of enabling every thoughtless fool who spends his money on nonessentials," she said, looking down her nose at him, "or who saves nothing against the unexpected-"

"It was not unnecessary," he said, and under his deferential tone there was a core of hard steel. "And no one plans for three funerals in one week. Ma'am."

She looked at him with surprise tinged with guilt.

"I apologize," said the younger Moore. "Excuse me." She went to the accounting books and drew out the most recent one. "I suppose I can allow for an extension, provided that we both agree to the new terms." She drew a new line on a fresh page. "Now, if I could just find your original agreement..." she said, thumbing back through the pages of the book.

"It was for ten pounds," said the man. "It was about here," he said, pointing to a place in the book, and when she turned to that page, he pointed again. "See?"

"I do," she said, with a new thoughtfulness in her voice. "And it says here you've been paying three shillings and sixpence every two weeks."

The man nodded.

"Alright," she said, "so if I..." She started to draw up a new contract, leaving the book open on the desk for the man to read.

"That's wrong," said the man, and then stammered, "I apologize, but this here-" he pointed to a particular row of sums "-this should be ten shillings sixpence, not nine shillings. And this here," he said, growing bolder, "this ought to be fifteen shillings twelve pence, but it's written here as fourteen and twelve pence."

Her eyebrows threatening to escape into her hair entirely, she looked at the rows of numbers again. There were more errors, each just a bit shorter than they should have been.

"That means," she said, her face darkening like a sky threatened by a storm, "that we're being embezzled from. For some months, at least. I'll see that clerk on a ship to Australia." She frowned, and then said, referring to the man's help, "That took some skill."

"I know my letters and numbers well enough," he said. "And a good memory's no trick."

"What are you called?"

"McKennon," said the man. "Diaval McKennon."

"I seem to be in need of a clerk, Mr. McKennon," she said, "and you seem suited for it, though I don't believe you could do worse than your predecessor. Pay is fifteen shillings a week, which I think would help to offset your debt considerably."

Mr. McKennon shook her hand. "Thank you, mistress."

“One shadow more!” exclaimed the Ghost.

“Must I?" she cried, dreading this final sight, sensing that it would be worse than the others.

It was a house she was not entirely unfamiliar with, but had not seen in many years. Her younger self was there, though older still, and she stood across a table from Stefan, who looked a mere shell of his former self, his beard grown out and his eyes wild.

"Your only option is to sell to me, Stefan," she was saying. "You'll not have a better offer."

His response was utterly disparaging of her origins, rank, and sex.

"I don't know what you expect to do otherwise," she said, ignoring his remark. "Many of your former clients are now my clients; your ex-tenants' rent now comes into my coffers; my rates are lower, my hours more reasonable - really, your business need not change very much after you sell to me. I can raise my rates after you're conveniently no longer able to provide competition."

"Signing to you would be surrender," he growled. "I'll not let you ruin me!"

"I won't ruin you so completely," she said with a wicked smile. "I can provide for Aurora to go to finishing school, if you like. She'll get an education, perhaps even have a place in society, though given her father's more humble origins, it might be rather difficult." At the mention of his daughter, Stefan paused. "I'll even," she added, "provide for her further if you become incapable of even that, though of course that's increasingly likely the longer you refuse to sell to me."

The number on the contract was a pittance, less than half of what his business had been worth at its height. Stefan signed anyway.

And as Malvina strode off with the contract, smiling triumphantly, he buried his head in his hands at his table, a broken man.

She had always remembered this moment as her greatest triumph, but now, she could stir no emotion in her heart other than pity and remorse.

“Spirit!” said Moore in a whisper, “remove me from this place.”

“I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,” said the ghost. “That they are what they are, do not blame me!”

“Remove me!” she exclaimed, “I cannot bear it!”

She turned upon the ghost, who gazed at her with such pity that she became almost enraged.

“Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!”

In a flash of inspiration, she became aware that the light was connected, in some part, to the memories that she had seen. She seized the cap held clasped in the spirit's hand, and pressed it on top of the spirit's golden curls, but no effort on her part could extinguish it. Instead, the spirit itself faded, leaving the light to grow brighter and brighter until it was almost blinding. Stumbling backwards away from the relentless light, she became aware that she was back in her own room, on her own bed, and as she closed her eyes to shield them, they became heavy with drowsiness until she could do nothing but surrender to it and sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe I planned to have this whole thing done by Christmas? Ha. Ha ha.
> 
> More research:
> 
>   * The Ghost of Christmas Past is, of course, Thistlewit. Uncle Robin is based on a character shown only in the _Maleficent_ novelization - he's where she gets her sense of humor from.
>   * There is a singular reference to the original _Sleeping Beauty_ in the party scene.
>   * My sources conflicted on when the term "icing" was originated and if cakes were iced in the 1800s. Fuck that, I want frosting on my cake.
>   * I spent quite a lot of time looking up [ the worth of the pound as compared to now, and also ](http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/exchange/index.php)[how much things would have cost](http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Coinage.jsp) and [what wages you could expect for different jobs](http://www.victorianlondon.org/finance/money.htm). And then I did a lot of slapdash math which is likely utterly inaccurate but close enough for my purposes.
>   * Embezzlement _could_ get you [sent to Australia](http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Crimes.jsp#embezzlement) if convicted. 
>   * Is it historically accurate that Maleficent could have become a businesswoman of this caliber? Probably not. Is it cool? Hell yeah.
> 



End file.
